Modern Books and Manuscripts

The online auction of The Herman Melville Collection of William S. Reese, September 1-14, 2022, was eagerly anticipated in American Literature research circles, library special collections circles, and trophy-hunting collecting circles. Results were impressive. The Christie’s sale realized nearly $3,000,000 for 100 lots, though not all were hammered down. There were sky-high bids for presentation […]

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The Houghton library recently acquired the manuscript of a novel by Georges Bataille (1897-1962), the French surrealist and existentialist writer whose work spans genres from pornography to economic theory, poetry, philosophy, and some intensely personal novels. In fact this manuscript is for a novel that doesn’t even have a single title: it was first published […]

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Houghton Library’s incomparable Melville collection holds priceless literary manuscripts, important original letters, his and his father’s travel journals, Melville family documents and correspondence, nineteenth-century family photographs, and the sublime Eaton oil portrait (1870) of the author. Harvard also owns the largest number of books from HM’s library in public or private hands. Melville’s library is […]

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Cataloging work continues on Harvard College Library’s recently acquired collection of over 20,000 zines. Zines are non-commercial, non-professional and small-circulation publications that their creators produce, publish and either trade or sell themselves. For access to the collection, contact the Modern Books & Manuscripts department. Our previous post noted the ways in which the cartoon art of zines […]

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Cataloging work continues on Harvard College Library’s recently acquired collection of over 20,000 zines. Zines are non-commercial, non-professional and small-circulation publications that their creators produce, publish and either trade or sell themselves. For access to the collection, contact the Modern Books & Manuscripts department. The graphic novel Persepolis illustrates the experience of its author, Marjane Satrapi, growing […]

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Houghton recently acquired a nineteenth-century bilingual manuscript of Ukrainian and Russian folk songs and verse. At first glance, the work seems unremarkable. At 370 pages, it contains over 120 poems and songs, including well-known works by Alexander Pushkin and Taras Shevchenko as well as many popular songs from the period. Certain details, however, render the […]

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A magnificent gift from the Theodore Roosevelt Association (TRA) in March celebrates its 76-year-long association with Harvard University. The Roosevelt Memorial Association (now the TRA) presented its sizable library holdings—which included 12,000 books and pamphlets, 10,000 photographs, and thousands of letters, manuscripts, and other items—to Harvard University, Roosevelt’s alma mater, in 1943. This became the […]

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Among the Nabokov family volumes recently added to Houghton Library’s catalog are several owned and annotated by Véra Nabokov. Vladimir’s wife of 52 years, Véra was indissolubly his literary partner as well: she read, edited, and translated his work, besides managing his business and legal affairs; attending his college courses and even teaching them when […]

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Among recent gifts to Harvard Library, the papers and books of the Nabokov family—Vladimir Nabokov, his wife Véra, and his son Dmitri—take pride of place. Jointly stewarded by Houghton Library and the Museum of Comparative Zoology (where Nabokov was curator of lepidoptery), the collection was given to Harvard University by the Vladimir Nabokov Literary Foundation. […]

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Cataloging work continues on Harvard College Library’s recently acquired collection of over 20,000 zines. Zines are non-commercial, non-professional and small-circulation publications that their creators produce, publish and either trade or sell themselves.  Zines, by their very nature, are unconventional in both form and content. So when zines address themes in classic literature, they often arrive at […]

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This post is part of an ongoing series featuring recently cataloged items from the Ludlow-Santo Domingo Library. Thanks to Rachel Parker, Archival Assistant, for contributing this post. In my first blog post on the Ludlow-Santo Domingo Library poster collection, I demonstrated why maintaining context can help answer the questions that arise when titling posters for […]

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This post is part of an ongoing series featuring recently cataloged items from the Ludlow-Santo Domingo Library. Thanks to Rachel Parker, Archival Assistant, for contributing this post. In May I began describing, photographing, and re-housing a discrete collection of posters within the Ludlow-Santo Domingo (LSD) Library collection. Tackling the Ludlow-Santo Domingo Library poster collection has […]

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This post is part of an ongoing series featuring items from the newly acquired Santo Domingo collection. Hey Beatnik! this is the Farm book by Stephen Gaskin is a tutorial on all things hippy and counterculture.  Gaskin, founder of “The Farm” in Tennessee, was a famous leader in the Haight-Ashbury circles of San Francisco and […]

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This post is part of an ongoing series featuring items from the newly acquired Santo Domingo collection. At the end of every year, while preparing for the new one, people are often struck with nostalgia.  This feeling, not just for the past year, but of past eras, is evoked in David Seidman’s book All Gone: […]

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This post is part of an ongoing series featuring items from the newly acquired Santo Domingo collection. Liber Null, a book by Pete Carroll, was originally written as a sourcebook for the magical organization, Illuminates of Thanateros.  It includes spells and magical exercises ranging from mind control to transmogrification.  A warning at the beginning of […]

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This post is part of an ongoing series featuring items from the newly acquired Santo Domingo collection. Although at first glance London Walkabout by Andrew Collins looks like a typical pamphlet for a tourist it actually is much more unusual.  Subtitled “Your guide to discovering the myths and legends of ten mystical sties in and […]

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This post is part of an ongoing series featuring items from the newly acquired Santo Domingo collection. The Faith of Graffiti presents the reader with beautiful full-spread photographs of street art by Jon Naar and Mervyn Kurlansky with an accompanying text by Norman Mailer.   By keeping the text separate in the center of the book, the […]

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This post is part of an ongoing series featuring items from the newly acquired Santo Domingo collection. Detailing the early 1970s mob scene Mafia at War is an interesting and thorough read.  Published by New York Magazine, this book gives an in depth chronology of the mob bosses from the early 1900s to the early […]

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This post is part of an ongoing series featuring items from the newly acquired Santo Domingo collection. James Wasserman, author, editor, publisher and occultist, gives us Art and Symbols of the Occult.  A disciple of Aleister Crawley’s Ordo Templi Orientis, he has written numerous books on the subject as well as republishing and updating several […]

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This post is part of an ongoing series featuring items from the newly acquired Santo Domingo collection.   Several books by the Reverend David Wilkerson and his followers are in the Santo Domingo Collection.   Wilkerson, an evangelic pastor who moved to New York because he felt called to help young gang members and drug addicts, […]

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